THE CLOCK on the bell tower at St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, is stuck at 8:45. It was at that moment on the morning of April 21st, Easter Sunday, that a bearded youth sauntered into the crowded holiday service and detonated a heavy, nail-studded bomb stuffed inside his backpack. Around the same time similar blasts struck two other churches and three luxury hotels across the country. Together the suicide bombs left 359 people dead and hundreds more injured, mostly Sri Lankan Christians but also some 39 foreign tourists. The toll would have been higher except that a seventh bomb, at another posh hotel, failed to explode.
展开▼
